Word smart : building an educated vocabulary

Synopsis

1) Do you know that to peruse a book is not to skim it? 2) Do you know the difference between enormous and enormity? 3) Do you know the adjective form of admonish, or the noun form of dubious? If you answered no to any of these questions, you needWord Smart. Improving your vocabulary is important, but where do you start? The English language has hundreds of thousands of words. To find out which words you absolutely need to know, The Princeton Review researched the vocabularies of educated adults. It analyzed newspapers fromThe New York TimestoThe Wall Street Journal, magazines fromTimetoScientific Americanand books from current bestsellers to classics. It threw out the words that most people know and focused on the words that people misunderstand or misuse. From these, it selected 823 words that appeared most frequently. And for students, The Princeton Review did the same thing. It analyzed the PSAT, the SAT, and GRE to determine which words are tested more frequently.Word Smartis the only vocabulary book you'll ever need. (Answers: 1) Despite what most people think, peruse means to read carefully. 2) Enormity can refer to the state of being large, but it also means a wicked or depraved act. 3) Admonitory, dubiety.)